After 2-8 season in 2013, Roeder and staff went right to work on rebuilding

The foundation for Freedom's turnaround football season was laid in a meeting in November 2013.

A disappointing 2-8 record was still fresh in everyone's minds when Patriots head coach Jason Roeder got his team and staff together to make a plan.

"We knew what had to be done," Roeder said. "We put together a plan and an agenda that we referenced throughout this past season. We identified specific problems and specific areas for improvement. And we put strategies in place to accomplish those goals."

At its core, the plan talked about the need to build.

"We focused on personal accountability," Roeder said. "At the end of every day, we wanted our kids to look at themselves in the mirror and ask if they built today, if they maintained today or did they break down today? We said that if we built every day, we were going to get better results."

The Patriots not only built a new culture and attitude, but produced a program that was more successful than anyone — including Roeder — envisioned.

Freedom was the big story for much of the 2014 season, winning its first seven games en route to a 9-3 finish and a win in the District 11 4A tournament.

As the architect of the turnaround, Roeder was an easy choice as The Morning Call's coach of the year.

"It doesn't surprise me at all that Coach Roeder is receiving this award," senior wide receiver Jake Young said. "From our last game last year, we started the rebuilding process. I remember the meeting we had at the end of last season and from that point, I knew we were going to have a better season.

"We just had to take it one game at a time, and no matter what people said about us, we knew we had the ability to turn it around," he said. "We knew we were still high character kids. We just had to work hard and go after every play and it all started with Coach Roeder."

Roeder, who just completed his 10th season in charge at Freedom, credited his staff for staying the course.

"This was a proud group of hard-working guys who took that 2-8 season as hard as I did," Roeder said. "When you've had success in the past, even at 2-8 you don't scrap everything. At the same time, we needed to look in the mirror and figure out what we needed to change as coaches. That's the trick."

Roeder appreciated the fact that the administration stayed with him even as rumors swirled.

"When you end a season at 2-8, everyone was wondering," Roeder said of his job status. "We brought in some new position coaches. But I credit the administration for not making changes. I appreciated the support, but at the same time we wish you didn't need the reassurance. I hate to let people down and that was really tough to go through the 2-win season. We needed to win everybody back."

Freedom has been through a rebuilding process before. The Patriots went from 2-8 in Roeder's first season in 2005 to playing in the subregional finals three years later.

Roeder could see the turnaround coming in preseason, even going back to a June 7-on-7 camp.

"We saw that the kids were just acting differently," Roeder said. "They were more mature."

A 35-14 Week 3 win at Emmaus was significant because it was against the same opponent in the same venue in 2013 when he realized that something was wrong.

He said his team had stopped competing over a three-minute window in the 2013 game, a 33-13 defeat that disgusted him as much as any in his tenure.

"Coming back and beating Emmaus after what happened there the year before was huge and the wins we were getting showed that things were different because we lost to those same teams the year before," Roeder said. "But we still had the big boys to play. And when we beat Whitehall in overtime after they had beaten us 42-3 the year before, we knew we had something special."

Roeder rallied and motivated his kids in a unique way. And they responded.

"Coach Roeder is very passionate and someone you really want to play for," senior John Callahan said. "You want to play to the best of your ability. He takes a lot of pride in this program. Going 2-8 the previous year was tough on him. We all knew it. As players, we wanted to help him get the program back to where it should be."

Freedom, while still in the shadow of Easton, Parkland and to a lesser extent its Bethlehem neighbors at Liberty and Bethlehem Catholic, appears to be back at a competitive level and set to stay there for awhile.

Many significant players from this year's team return in 2015.

The Patriots freshman team began with just 17 kids, but found a way to go 7-3. The East Hills middle school squad won the city title and the feeder Bethlehem Township Bulldogs have a group of players who have never lost a game as they have moved through the youth ranks and had all of its teams make the playoffs.

"We're excited about where we're going," Roeder said. "We're already flying in the weight room. We talk about fixing the room while the sun is shining."

Roeder, a father of three, graduated from Bethlehem Catholic in 1993 and Moravian College in 1997.

He knows what Bethlehem football is all about.

"We can't change what people think about us," Roeder said. "I know what the perception is and I knew it when I came in 10 years ago. But we can't control that. All we can control is how we go about things and right now I'm very pleased with the kids we have. We have high effort, high character kids. This was a special year, but we want next year to be even better."